installation

ARTICLE: ADRIFT IN THE UNCANNY VALLEY

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. To provide context to this remarkable work, we are discussing the Serbian-German artist’ oeuvre. Today we take a closer look at In Between identities.

With his groundbreaking machinima In between identities (2015) and the subsequent video installation This water gives back no Images (2017), Berlin-based filmmaker Aleksandar Radan established himself in the mid-2010s as a rising talent probing the porous boundaries between concrete and virtual spaces. Appropriating assets from blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto V, Radan constructs eerie, liminal worlds where meaning frays, and questions of identity become as glitchy as the discordant landscapes he frames.

Originally presented in April 2020 as VRAL #2, In between identities sees Radan hijack GTA V, rewriting portions of code through modding to direct lonely avatars stripped of context, narrative, and purpose. Bereft of missions, these figures wander a murky, humid, deserted city, their awkward movements and apparent disorientation at odds with the usual bombastic pace of the “conventional” gameplay. Dressed incongruously in bathing suits or fur coats, slicing cucumbers over their eyes, the mute characters perform uncanny rituals before mirrors and displays. Repeated motifs like photographs and screens highlight themes of fragmented selfhood and surveillance. Radan’s fixed camera angles hold uncomfortably long on incidents of mundane absurdity as his non-player characters break scripted behaviors. Static shots are interrupted by the camera’s jerky movements as the artist is filming the computer monitor where the action is unfolding, zooming in and out abruptly, rather than recording the game footage via a dedicated card. The removal of soundtracks enhances the sensation of drifting outside reality.

This early experiment crystallized Radan’s impulse to short-circuit gaming conventions via artistic intervention…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

In between identities, digital video, color, sound, 8’ 50”, 2015, Germany

This water gives back no Images, 3-channel video installation, 6’ 12”, loop, 2017, Germany; presented on VRAL as a single-channel digital video

All images courtesy of the Artist

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ARTICLE: THE RIDICULOUS PROPHECIES OF AVATARS

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of a ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany, installation view at Frankfurter Kunstverein

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. Today we take a closer look at his 2017 experimental minimalist video work Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of an ridiculous avatar).

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Aleksandar Radan’s experimental animated short Prophecy of an Ridiculous Avatar (2017) (sic) and the video installation This water gives back no Images (2019), currently exhibited on VRAL, both manipulate found digital imagery to probe the boundaries between real and virtual identity. However, their approaches differ strikingly. Where Prophecy renders its appropriated clips from video games and social media into hand-drawn outlines, This water revels in the saturated hyperreality of gameplay graphics. And while Prophecy strips figures of identifiable features through the technique of rotoscoping, This Water foregrounds emergent narratives by concentrating on a single, recurring pale, somehow uncanny, avatar. Ultimately, Prophecy pursues abstraction by removing context, whereas This Water achieves discomfort by submerging viewers deeper inside familiar and yet uncanny simulated worlds.

Created specifically forhis 2017 solo exhibition at Frankfurter Kunstverein, the 5-minute experimental video Prophecy sees Radan meticulously rotoscope over 4,000 individual frames of digital footage. Culled from sources like YouTube and Twitch, scenes of violence, exploitation and vulnerability intermingle and repeat in a seamless flow. Despite utilizing digital editing tools, Radan manually traces each cell by hand — a painstaking process where two days of work yield just 10 seconds of finished film. Through exhaustive frame-by-frame drawing and erasure, offensive moments become diffused into hypnotic movement studies. Bereft of facial details, the abstracted figures traverse a contextless void…

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of an ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany

Aleksandar Radan

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6’ 12”, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

All images courtesy of the artist

Aleksandar Radan

Prophezeiung eines lächerlichen Avatars (Prophecy of a ridiculous avatar)

digital video (rotoscoped, 3D animated film), 5’ 02”, 2017, Germany, installation view at Frankfurter Kunstverein

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT ALEKSANDAR RADAN’S THIS WATER GIVES BACK NO IMAGES

VRAL is currently exhibiting Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images. To better contextualize this exhibition, we will be discussing some highlights from Radan’s eclectic oeuvre. Today we take a closer look at this remarkable video installation.

Produced in 2017, Aleksandar Radan’s This water giver back no Images is a 6-minute video work exploring the boundary between reality and simulation in digital worlds, created by manipulating landscapes and characters from Grand Theft Auto V. This work is strictly connected to the poem “No Images” (1922) by William Waring Cuney and Nina Simone’s song “Images” (1964), which address the inability of marginalized groups to see positive reflections of themselves mirrored back from society.

Radan incorporated an excerpt of Simone’s live 1964 recording of “Images” in his video. As her vocals play, the GTA-derived visuals distort – palm trees warp, avatars phase in and out of being. The looping images center on a mysterious, uncanny, pale gray avatar seated numbly in a room, lying outside by palm trees, and watching Simone sing on a television nested incongruously among levitating flora...

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Aleksandar Radan

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6:12 min, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

This is a Patreon exclusive content. For full access consider joining our growing community.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT LARS PREISSER’S HOME/NOME

VRAL is currently showcasing Lars Preisser’s HOME/NOME. Today we take a deep dive into this fascinating installation by discussing its unintended relation to Fumi Omori's equally mesmerizing Home Sweet Home.

Both featured in Season 4 of VRAL, Fumi Omori’s Home Sweet Home and Lars Preisser’s HOME/NOME are two installations that leverage video games to explore themes of domesticity, memory, and the concept of “home”. Despite their shared conceptual interests, the projects differ significantly in their artistic approaches and techniques.

A key distinction lies in the artists’ choice and use of the video game medium. Both appropriate and decontextualize Nintendo's product, but their approach and outcome are considerably different. Omori employs Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020), a contemporary social simulation game, as the primary artistic material. By contrast, Preisser resurrects the vintage Super Nintendo title Mario Paint (1992). Omori’s adoption of Animal Crossing reflects her personal connection to the game as a source of escapism during the Covid-19 pandemic. The resulting machinima takes advantage of the game’s customizable architecture and interior design features. Preisser’s selection of Mario Paint stems from his childhood memories of using the game in the original apartment depicted in HOME/NOME. The retro aesthetic becomes a temporal bridge to the past.

Their divergent game texts contribute to major technical differences between the artworks. Home Sweet Home consists of digital video incorporating photogrammetry and impossible architecture constructed within Animal Crossing’s virtual world. The immersive 3D environment allows Omori to translate real memories into imaginative spaces unbound by physical constraints. On the other hand, HOME/NOME relies on lo-fi pixel art animation created through Mario Paint’s limited 2D drawing tools. Preisser opts for a…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Lars Preisser, HOME/NOME, video installation, SNES game consoles, animation, video, Hi8, miniDV, Bang & Olufsen 90s TV sets, hereby presented as digital video, color, sound, 4’ 16, 2021-2022, Germany

Fumi Omori, Home Sweet Home, machinima/digital video, color, sound, 2’ 35”, 2023, Japan

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EVENT: LARS PREISSER (NOVEMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 23 2023, ONLINE)

HOME/NOME

Video installation, SNES game consoles, animation, video, Hi8, miniDV, Bang & Olufsen 90s TV sets, hereby presented as digital video, color, sound, 4’ 16, 2021-2022, Germany

Created by Lars Preisser

NOME/HOME is an immersive video installation exploring the relationship between memory, interior design, and video games. Specifically, NOME/HOME recreates Preisser’s former Berlin apartment through the pixelated rendering of Mario Paint, breathing renewed life into the spaces he once inhabited. Participants traverse disorienting rooms as Preisser’s own voice echoes hauntingly around them. This audible tableau juxtaposed with the visual fragmentation of the gaming software creates a palpable sense of nostalgia and loss. Visitors are transported into uncanny reimaginings of real spaces that over time have been distorted by the urban forces of gentrification. By reviving the past through both analog and digital artifacts, Preisser contemplates the ephemerality of memory and the erasure of history in the built environment. NOME/HOME provides an entry point to meditate on the entwined nature of place, recollection, and selfhood within the ever-changing terrain of the city.

Lars Preisser is a multidisciplinary German artist whose work spans various media including weaving, drawing, and moving images. Born in 1984 in Lindau, Preisser holds degrees in textile art and media art from Otago Polytechnic and HGB Leipzig. His research-intensive projects result in intricate formations that address issues like gentrification, technology, climate change, and post-colonialism through a personal lens. Preisser’s family heritage and background in industrial machinery inform his practice. The artist has exhibited internationally at venues like Bauhaus Dessau, nGbK Berlin, and the contemporary textile art biennial Contextile among others. Preisser spent formative years in New Zealand before returning to Berlin where he currently lives and maintains an active studio practice.

ARTICLE: FREE WILL IN THE AGE OF AI

VRAL is currently showcasing Filip Kostic’s 2019 game video Filip Kostic VS. Filip Kostic in a brand new format. Today, we discuss Open Loop (2017), which explores the concept of agency and determinism through the use of an AI character trapped in a repetitive cycle.

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Open Loop is a massive, real time installation by Filip Kostic which examines the notion of agency and determinism through the use of an AI character stuck in a repetitive - and ultimately nihilistic - sequence. Here, the AI character’s actions and behaviors unfold in real-time, mirroring the interactivity found in video games and digital environments. The original installation at Roger’s Office gallery in Los Angeles utilized eight monitors in order to create an immersive and engaging visual experience for viewers, evoking the “man cave” milieu of hard core gamers. The custom-built computer functioned as the central nervous system of the installation. This was not just any computer: it was meticulously designed and crafted to meet the high computational requirements of the AI simulation. It sported neon lights, a hallmark of gaming PCs, serving both functional and aesthetic purposes. In Open Loop, the neon lights symbolize the intersection of art and technology, blurring the boundaries between gaming and artistic expression. The gaming PC also has a transparent cabinet,  allowing users – in this case, Kostic – to showcase the internal components, e.g., powerful GPUs. In an upcoming article, we will discuss Kostic’s fascination for the custom built pc as a modern day sculpture. In the context of the installation, these transparent cabinets invited viewers to contemplate the inner workings of the AI simulation and the technology that drives it.

As previously mentioned, Open Loop investigates the role of agency within AI systems. In this context, agency refers to the ability of an AI program or ”agent“, to make decisions based on its programming or training data. However, in Open Loop, the AI ”character“ lacks agency, as it is trapped in a predetermined, repetitive cycle of actions, unable to exercise free will. In this context, these actions or behaviors involve walking, dying, and respawning, all occurring devoid of any external control. 

Open Loop was originally conceived and developed in 2016, at a time when artificial intelligence was on the cusp of gaining cultural prominence and mainstream adoption. Back then, the artist was studying the design of Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in Unreal Engine and became fascinated by the limits of programmed behaviors. In many ways, he was ahead of his times: behavior trees in NPCs can now be seen as viral trends in livestreams and tiktoks where individuals mimic NPC behaviors, like Pinkydoll. His further research led him to explore the concepts of open and closed loop systems…

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Matteo Bittanti


Works cited

Filip Kostic

Open Loop

real-time AI simulation, eight monitors, custom built computer, custom GPU and CPU cooling loops, steel and acrylic structure, installed at Roger’s Office in Los Angeles, California, 2017

All images and videos courtesy of the Artist

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ARTICLE: LIMITED VIEWS. ON HUGO ARCIER’S FPS

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Currently on display at VRAL is Ghost City, Hugo Arcier’s groundbreaking 2016 video installation, which, until now, has never been exhibited online. After discussing 11 Executions and the Limbus series, we conclude our examination of Arcier’s game-based works with FPS (2016). 

Alongside 11 Executions, FPS is one of Hugo Arcier’s most thought-provoking game-based installations. This interactive piece – which debuted in 2016 in the context of the Fantômes numériques exhibition at Plateforme Paris – is accompanied by a soundtrack by Stéphane Rives and Frédéric Nogray, also known as The Imaginary Soundscapes.

As most readers will likely know, FPS is the acronym of First-Person Shooter, a genre of video games that emerged in the United States at the beginning of the 1990s. Early examples include Wolfenstein 3D (1991) and Doom (1993) both developed by id Software, a company from Mesquite, Texas. For those who are unfamiliar with FPSs, suffice to say that these games are presented from the visual perspective of the avatar: the player views the game world as if through their character’s eyes. The primary gameplay element involves shooting and combat from this first-person perspective. Players must aim and shoot enemies and opponents using a variety of guns and weapons, which occupy the center of the screen. The pace and gameplay is fast, intense, and action-packed. FPS games tend to have a strong focus on reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The competitive element is a major component in most FPS games, which are known for immersive visual and audio experiences that make the player feel part of the world and action. Common elements include detailed graphics, surround sound, and realistic physics. In short, the FPS is a quintessentially USA-centric video game genre: the fact that a society that venerates weapons created an entire genre of techno-violence celebrating gun culture as a playful pastime makes perfect sense.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the FPS is also one of the most criticized genres of video games. They have been accused of promoting real life violence and aggression, usually by opportunistic, bi-partisan politicians funded by the weapon-industry, represented by the National Rifle Association. For instance, it is ironic that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump suggest the existence of a strong link between simulated violence and real life violence against all scientific evidence. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that the core mechanics of most FPS games involve shooting and killing, often in graphic ways. This has led to concerns that they are making violence seem mundane and potentially desensitizing players, perhaps an even more pernicious side effect than instigating aggression. Moreover, FPS games tend to prioritize action and combat over storytelling and character development. This had led some to criticize them as glorifying violence for its own sake. In terms of representation, many FPS games have been accused of promoting problematic stereotypes by depicting enemies from specific real-world groups, regions, or ethnicities. This kind of problematic representation also extends to women: female characters have often been underrepresented or depicted in sexualized ways in FPS games. The FPS has been accused of feeding hyper-masculine power fantasies. Moreover, some argue that the emphasis on the subjective view of the FPS is not purely visual, but ideological. For this reason, FPS games have been accused of promoting a limited perspective centered around the player character, rather than allowing for a diverse range of points of view. Additionally, the fast pace and visceral nature of FPS gameplay allows little time for empathy, reflection or consideration of consequences of violence. Their addictive qualities have also come under attack: FPS games are designed to keep players engaged, which has led to warnings about these games promoting addictive tendencies, especially in children. Finally, competitive online multiplayer FPS games are often plagued by aggressive behavior, bullying, and discrimination in chat/voice communications between players. The term “toxic” is usually cited in these debates. For these – and other – reasons, the FPS genre is considered…

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Matteo Bittanti

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NEWS: ART IS A GAME NOT EVERYBODY CAN PLAY (LET ALONE WIN)

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VRAL is currently exhibiting Juan Obando’s Pro Revolution Soccer, a modded version of PES celebrating a counter-historical event: a match between Inter Milan and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation soccer team that never took place. Today, we are presenting another example of video game-based art created by hijacking, appropriating, and recontextualizing Konami’s popular soccer game, The Cool Couple’s Emozioni Mondiali (2018-ongoing) through the lens of Sarah Thornton’s notion of subcultural capital. Previous episodes in this series include Miguel Gomes, Marta Azparren, Gweni Llwyd and Owen Davies

Nicolò Benetton and Simone Santilli aka The Cool Couple, are known for their astute artistic interventions which often incorporate video games, as in the case of Flyin’ High (2021), a machinima created with(in) Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emozioni Mondiali (2018-ongoing) skillfully combines the domains of sport, politics, and art. Described as “an expansion kit” for the immensely popular football game Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, the work is an ironic and provocative arena that encourages user, pardon, visitor participation. Specifically, each museum goer is invited to engage in situ with a special edition of Konami’s simulation featuring customized athletes/artists belonging to distinct movements spanning from the Renaissance to the present day. Notably, among these teams are the duo themselves.

Executed with meticulous care and a deep respect for the evoked artists, events, and movements it represents – e.g., the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, Futurism 1909, DADA, S.F. Surrealiste, Abstract Expressionism, Fluxus, Pop Art, Conceptual Art 1961, Art Informel, Land Art, Arte Povera, Young British Artists, Dreams and Conflicts – Venice Biennale 2003, Photo-Legends, Post-Internet, Documenta (13) –, Emozioni Mondiali is a mischievous examination of the symbiotic (parasitic?) relationship between art and sport, and vice versa. The work has been exhibited as an interactive installation running the customized iteration of Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, and it is complemented by abstract paintings based on the teams’ jerseys and uniforms patterns.

Emozioni Mondiali is both an exercise in skinning – i.e., the process of altering the visual look of game elements like characters, vehicles, or weapons of a video game without changing their underlying mechanics or gameplay functionality – and extreme customization. As most gamers know, skins are applied as textures, materials, or mesh overlays that give models a new surface look. Creating skins requires graphic design skills and often advanced 3D modeling knowledge to make the assets fit the game’s visual style. Moreover, skinning allows the most skilled players to put their own visual stamp on games in a way that shows off their style, skills, or status in the community and it could be considered an example of what art critic Sarah Thornton calls subcultural capital in her 1995 book Club Cultures, which refers to the social status, knowledge, and cultural competencies that confer prestige within certain subcultures. Subcultural capital can be converted into economic capital: unsurprisingly, the most sought out skin artists often provide their services to other gamers – and artists, why not? – for a price.

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Matteo Bittanti

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MMF MMXXIII UPDATE: A CHAT WITH SØREN THILO FUNDER

Søren Thilo Funder, GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids), 2021, still

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The Milan Machinima Festival is delighted to present Søren Thilo Funder's groundbreaking work GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids) (2021) for the first time in Italy as a single channel video. Originally conceived as an installation. this work offers a thought-provoking and multi-layered exploration of the intersection between gaming and reality. GAME Engine takes the viewers on a journey to an undisclosed location, where they are invited to an exclusive press meeting with a game developer. Through the perspective of a spokesperson, the work offers a glimpse into a brand new game engine promising a revolutionary experience, with details shrouded in secrecy to protect its intellectual property value.

An artist who specializes in video and installation, Søren Thilo Funder, creates thought-provoking works that blend various cultural tropes, socio-political issues, and popular fictions. These narrative constructions operate within a delicate membrane where fictions and realities intersect, generating fresh interpretations and new meanings. Funder’s oeuvre is steeped in both written and unwritten histories, as well as a deep awareness of the paradoxes and complexities of societal engagement. His art explores temporal displacements, nonlinear storytelling, and the emergence of new, unconventional forms of memory. Through his work, Thilo Funder creates immersive spaces that enable unpredictable encounters with the political, temporal, and recollective. Funder received an MA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently finishing a Doctorate program in Artistic Research at The Art Academy, Department of Contemporary Art, University of Bergen in Norway.

GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids) will be screened exclusively at the MIC - Museum of Interactive Cinema on March 25 2023 in the POLITICS OF GAMING program.

Thilo Funder's Everywhere (2007) was recently featured in VRAL S03.

Matteo Bittanti and Søren Thilo Funder discussed the genesis and evolution of GAME Engine, which has been exhibited internationally through various iterations.

Matteo Bittanti: Can you discuss how the recursive structure of GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids) reflects the repetitive nature of video game playing? Is this looped narrative a defining, quintessential feature of digital games? In our previous conversation, you spoke about the concept of tempor(e)ality, i.e., “the timeliness of reality, or how reality unfolds in accordance to time; not only on a phenomenological or conceptual level but on a socio-political one as well”, and how gaming can be a way for young people to “reclaim time”. However, the looped narrative in games can also give a false sense of progression: the effect is akin to being stuck in time, as seen in TV shows like Russian Doll and films like Groundhog Day. Can you address the tempor(e)ality of GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids)?

Søren Thilo Funder: I’ve been thinking a lot about how the recursive formatting of game levels somehow mirror the way in which we also seem to repeat gestures and passages in our everyday tempor(e)ality, to stay with that term. Especially in my work with CS:GO athletes, we kept circling around the idea of respawning, that is, the reappearance after having been killed, only to set out and repeat the motions that led to your perishing in the first place. GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids) was created specifically for an exhibition revolving around Extreme Sports. Here I proposed eSports as falling under this category. There is an extreme cognitive effort to the athlete that only succeeds if every micro action and choice is done at the exact right moment. And this extremely athletic precision is contrasted by the seated body and almost passive gaze of the athlete. I am really fascinated with the linkage to the excessive motion of the virtual character up on the screen and the physical still body that directs all the action. Another reason why I thought of CS:GO eSports as an extreme sport, is due to the complicated reality of having a sport where the playing field is induced with a political reality outside of the strategic unfolding of the game. I can think of no other sport where the competition is playing out in a field that is textured with the environment of an ongoing political conflict. I was interested in the linkage between what the players experienced cognitively, in the unfolding of their top athletic strategic maneuvering and astounding reaction time, and the visuality of the environment they navigated through, and the political landscape it represents. The respawning, of the CS:GO soldier, in the dark tunnel just outside the Mid Doors of the game level Dust 2, and of The Spokesperson delivering her presentation at the exclusive press meeting, perhaps speaks to the idea of being stuck in the recursive, but also that each respawning offers a possibility to think again, act different, learn from one’s environment. And technically (and conceptually), working with video installations for me is about progression in the looping environment. The video installation loops, the visitor of the installation can move about, leave, re-enter at their own behest. So linear narrative will always be an illusion – or for the apparatus itself to experience without a visitor – the real experience in the visitor will always be about assembling narrative, experiencing loops, selective editing or really respawning with the work. Or the work respawns every time a visitor leaves or enters. I like to use this circumstance quite deliberately, not as a way to bypass the problem of the visitor never experiencing what I had planned to be the experience, but rather to enforce this aspect and let this tempor(e)ality inform my process and my own experience of how narratives can be unfolded. There is a dreamlike sensation in experiencing the loop, that is not the loop. A return to somewhere else. I hope that this looping offers the possibility of reclaiming time – the time experience of the work but also really the time experience of existing in our contemporary tempor(e)ality. Progression is a strange word. It seems to have a certain implication of a productivity that leads towards accumulation, but I believe there could be progression in the looping, the respawning, the staying in the trouble and figuring out what the hell is going on before moving torrentially ahead.

Matteo Bittanti: Through repeated views of GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids), I couldn’t help but come to see a parallel to David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ. The spokesperson/game designer in both works is enigmatic yet captivating, charismatic yet elusive. Did you have Allegra Geller in mind while creating your project, and if so, to what extent was Cronenberg's 1999 reflection on video game culture a source of inspiration for your work?

Søren Thilo Funder: Allegra Geller is (tip of the cap) exactly the character I always imagined behind the game developer in GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids). We never meet her here though: we only see a…

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Matteo Bittanti

Works cited

Søren Thilo Funder

GAME Engine (Orange Bulletproof Kids)

digital video, color, sound, 30’ 02”, 2021, Denmark

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EVENT: SØREN THILO FUNDER (FEBRUARY 24 - MARCH 9 2023, ONLINE)

EVERYWHERE

Digital video/machinima (720 x 328), color, 11’ 33”, 2007, Denmark

Created by Søren Thilo Funder

In Everywhere, we witness a lone figure navigating through a bleak and surreal urban environment, evoking a sense of isolation and alienation. The desolate terrain appears to be both familiar and foreign, presenting a disorienting experience for the viewer. The man’ continuous movement and evasion of unseen obstacles within the virtual realm challenge conventional notions of escapism, offering a fresh perspective on the concept as an unending cycle of seeking liberation from an undefined void. The piece’s cyclical nature serves as a commentary on the paradoxical nature of escape, as the runner’s repetitive journey highlights the futility of attempting to break free from the inherent boundaries, constraints, and power dynamics of digital media. Through this haunting work, the artist invites us to reflect on the interplay between virtual and real-life experiences, and the inherent limits within the world of gaming.


An artist who specializes in video and installation, Søren Thilo Funder, creates thought-provoking works that blend various cultural tropes, socio-political issues, and popular fictions. These narrative constructions operate within a delicate membrane where fictions and realities intersect, generating fresh interpretations and new meanings. Funder's oeuvre is steeped in both written and unwritten histories, as well as a deep awareness of the paradoxes and complexities of societal engagement. His art explores temporal displacements, nonlinear storytelling, and the emergence of new, unconventional forms of memory. Through his work, Thilo Funder creates immersive spaces that enable unpredictable encounters with the political, temporal, and recollective. He invites the viewer to challenge their preconceptions and explore the unexpected, creating a dialogue that is both deeply personal and universally relevant. Funder received an MA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently finishing a Doctorate program in Artistic Research at The Art Academy, Department of Contemporary Art, University of Bergen in Norway.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT MARTINA MENEGON'S WHEN YOU ARE CLOSE TO ME I SHIVER

Martina Menegon, when I am close to you I shiver, installation shot by Georg Mayer, MAK, Museum of Applied Arts, Wien, 2020

MASS SUICIDE IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE EMERGENCY

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Currently exhibited on VRAL as a machinima, Martina Menegon’s when you are close to me I shiver was originally conceived as a live simulation. Presented as an installation featuring tablets, large screens, and an immersive soundscape designed by Alexander Martzin, when you are close to me I shiver is a multimedia experience bringing together the artist’s key concerns: the body as a site of conflict, self-representation as a political act, and climate change. Menegon imagines a future where humankind is close to extinction, a realistic outcome considering half a century of complete dismissal of climate change by the worlds’ governments. In this live simulation, the world is completely submerged by water, like in a Ballardian nightmarescape.

The survivors converge on a small island to die. Naked and vulnerable, they simply wait for the inevitable end. Such a scenario is both uncanny and familiar: after all, it was inspired by a powerful scene in David Attenborough’s Our Planet (2019) depicting more than 100,000 moribund walruses as they gather onto a small stretch of coast in Northern Russia in 2017 (“20 kilometers of a never ending walrus gathering”, as scientist Anatoly Cochnev described it). Some of the most graphic scenes show walruses falling from cliffs, evoking the image of a “falling man” jumping to his death as New York’s Twin Towers were about to crumble. The walrus gather on this place because of the melting ice in the Arctic: having nowhere to go, they choose death…

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Matteo Bittanti

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EVENT: MARTINA MENEGON (SEPTEMBER 30 - AUGUST 13 2022, ONLINE)

when you are close to me I shiver

video recording of live simulation

digital video/machinima (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 7’ 47”, 2020, Italy

Created by Martina Menegon

Sound design by Alexander Martinz

when you are close to me I shiver is an algorithmically controlled live simulation, hereby presented as a video recording, that is, a real-time generated virtual experience that takes place in a version of the future in which humans, out of desperation, gather in masses on the last remaining piece of land. Inspired by the walrus scene in the documentary Our Planet narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, the project proposes a scenario encompassing ongoing environmental and personal crises. The video depicts a desolated island populated by 3D-scanned clones of the artist herself. Through these perceivable avatars, the artist creates a new identity that arises out of plurality, proprioceptively renegotiating the fragility of both the physical and the virtual self and its realities.

Martina Menegon (Italy, 1988) is an artist working predominantly with Interactive and Extended Reality Art. In her works, Martina creates intimate and complex assemblages of physical and virtual elements that explore the contemporary self and its phygital corporeality. She experiments with the uncanny and the grotesque, the self and the body and the dialogue between physical and virtual realities, to create disorienting experiences that become perceivable despite their virtual nature.

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ARTICLE: GET LOST IN THE WOODS

Babak Ahteshamipoiur, Occupy Determined Neural Systems District and Take Action to get Rid of Them, Acrylics and oil pastels on canvas, 2021

GHOSTING IS REAL

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Developed in collaboration with Nathan Harper, The Lost Woods is both a medium and a message. A 3D virtual gallery space accessible online, it is an exhibition context and an archive featuring 30+ artifacts exploring the notion of virtual identity and artificial intelligence. The artists describe the experience in video game terms:

You appear in a dark forest shrouded in green fog. Ancient trees tower up into the murky skies. Before you lies a massive tree stump with jagged edges. Next to it on the left is a tunnel. The forest is inhabited by strange beings and floating brightly colored texts.

The works on display in The Lost Woods are both "new" and remediated, to borrow Bolter and Grusin's term. Ahteshamipoiur's paintings such as The Fires that Burn are Never the Ones that were Meant to Burn (2021) and Occupy Sad Neural Systems District and Cry to get Rid of Them (2021) have been digitized and incorporated within this fluid, navigable space, replete with video game tropes, characters and props. In some cases, metaphors are crystalline, if not literal - such is the case of ghosting, thanks to Super Mario 64's various ectoplasms - in other cases, they are more nuanced. Characters from previous works, such as the Grim Reaper from The Sims — and the video currently shown on VRAL — make an appearance as well. 

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Matteo Bittanti

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ARTICLE: IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD (OF WARCRAFT) AS WE KNOW IT

THE WORLD IS DYING, BUT WHY BOTHER? I’VE MADE IT TO LEVEL 70 IN WOW!

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World of Warcraft, one of the most popular massively multiplayer role playing games of all time, has been appropriated, hijacked, and repurposed by Babak Ahteshamipour for In Search of the Banned Dictionaries that contain the Words for the Things You Wish you could Express but You are Unable to With Common Words (2022). The outcome of an extended production phase which began with the creation of an alter ego — a Blood Elf Warlock which was then “evolved” through a process leveling up — the video is equal part documentation and self expression. Such a complicated and time-consuming procedure was necessary for the artist’s avatar to access all the areas of the game, so that the player-director could explore different scenarios, regions, and dungeons, and capture the salient footage. As you know, machinima is hard work. Interestingly, the “action” is presented not from the customary third person view of the game, but from the first-person perspective, usually associated with first-person shooters. The absence of a recognizable body onscreen makes the experience at once disembodied — and thus uncanny — and more immersive, because the viewer can freely project their identity onto the protagonist, whomever they may be. Ahteshamipour calls this state of affairs “transcendental”, as identity becomes inseparable from the act of viewing: the player-spectator is, at once, the all seeing eye of a demiurge.

The artist describes In Search of the Banned Dictionaries that contain the Words for the Things You Wish you could Express but You are Unable to With Common Words as a commentary on escapism, in the sense that gaming is generally perceived as a form of entertainment that provides players with alternative situations, “fun” challenges, and entire worlds to their ordinary lives. This tendency to escape real life is becoming more and more popular as the planet is dying before our eyes: climate change, environmental catastrophes, air pollution and micro-plastics are rendering Earth increasingly inhabitable (“DOOM”). It comes as no surprise as Silicon Valley companies are pushing hard for metaverses and simulations: incapable or unwilling to change the status quo - because it’s not economically advantageous — video game companies and social media platforms have been systemically encouraging users to drop out and log in: the planet is dying, but this simulated world looks so good on the screen:

“It is so cool to pretend to love the sight of a dying world from a privileged perspective”.

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.

ARTICLE: A CLOSER LOOK AT BABAK AHTESHAMIPOUR’S POST-CODED THOUGHTS...

Babak Ahteshamipour, Paleontology of Non-existence, installation shot at Sub Rosa space, Athens, Greece, 2021

WHAT COMES AFTER ARMAGEDDON?

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Currently exhibited on VRAL, Babak Ahteshamipour’s Post-coded Thoughts on the Never-Upcoming Foreshadowed Li(f)e's originality reflects the author’s own trajectory, which includes a degree in music theory, harmony and violin studies and a Master of Science in Mineral Resources Engineering. Born in Iran in 1994, Ahteshamipour’s work with video game based video art is relatively recent, although “it boldly shaped [his] identity throughout early life and since cyberspace is part of [his] broader artistic research”, as he told Fantacci. Post-coded Thoughts’s was produced while the world was experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic, with its litany of deaths, lockdowns, and disinformation. Released in 2021, it signaled a shift, or rather a new phase in Ahteshamipour’s practice.

In a sense, the work is an assemblage of motifs, but also artifacts, hereby rendered as virtual objects. Consider for instance the painterly works featured in paleontology of non-existence (2021) an installation that appropriates and recontextualizes characters from various video games and uses tweet-like slogans such as “It seems, after all, we couldn't escape the game engines”. Post-coded was part of this complex scenario in which various planes of reality - the tangible, the simulation, the augmented - engage in a conversation.

Albeit visually playful and imbued with a distinct kind of irony, the world that Paleontology of Non-existence alludes to is a dystopia. An unexplained “event” has abruptly and irreversibly erased all of mankind, so that Earth is now inhabited by AIs. Equally mysterious is the reason behind AI rapid evolution: left to their own devices, machines become sentient, wondering about the disappearance of their former creators. This new algorithmic age is marked by an existential crisis. Machines are trying to find meaning in a world that appears utterly fatalistic. The new normal, just like the old normal, is being stuck in a feedback loop: on the one hand, the simverse is a replica of the pre-existing world. On the other hand, the avatar - a stand-in of the artist himself - is clearly looking for answers that the simulation - just like a market based society - cannot provide. The puppet has become the puppeteer but the wires have not been cut: free will is not an option. Free will can only be simulated. Ditto for artistic creation: the puppet plays music, shifting from his guitar to his piano, stares at his paintings for inspiration, and shares his thoughts and moods.

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Matteo Bittanti

All images courtesy of the artist

Babak Ahteshamipour, Paleontology of Non-existence, installation shot at Sub Rosa space, Athens, Greece, 2021

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